3,000-plus page report provides insight into Greenland tragedy

Saturday

Dec 15, 2012 at 3:15 AMApr 12, 2013 at 10:37 AM

By Jim Haddadinjhaddadin@fosters.com

CONCORD — A State Police investigation into the fatal drug raid in Greenland spanning more than 3,000 pages has been released to the public, providing a new window into the harrowing events of the day.

A trove of witness interviews is included among the documents, as well as hundreds of records detailing the police operations before and after the shootings.

After reviewing the entire case file, Attorney General Michael Delaney said Friday investigators have determined conclusively that Cullen Mutrie, the suspect at the center of the drug raid, is responsible for the murder of Greenland Police Chief Michael Maloney.

“We will never forget the courage and bravery shown by Chief Maloney and our law enforcement officers undercover that day,” Delaney said. “Chief Maloney died saving the lives of his fellow officers, protecting the quality of life in that neighborhood, and attempting to remove a threat to the safety and the well-being of the citizens of his community.”

Through the course of an undercover investigation that lasted months, Mutrie, 29, and his girlfriend, Brittany Tibbetts, were identified by DTF investigators as suspects in the sale of oxycodone and anabolic steroids. A confidential informant allegedly purchased narcotics from Tibbetts inside Mutrie's home at 517 Post Road in Greenland.

Mutrie was also well known to local police. He had previously been arrested on charges of possession of steroids. He was also picked up previously on a simple assault charge, and on disorderly conduct and domestic violence-related incidents.

Mutrie was out of jail on personal recognizance bail at the time of the April 12 drug raid, awaiting trial on felony drug charges in Rockingham County Superior Court. He was prohibited from possessing firearms as a condition of his bail, and as a result of the prior domestic violence incident.

Early in the investigation into Mutrie, the leader of the Seacoast DTF team met with a commander from the Seacoast Emergency Response Team. SERT is a tactical group that responds in local communities during tense police situations, often those that involve barricaded subjects.

Greenland is not among the communities that partner to fund the SERT team, and the drug task force team leader ultimately decided he “felt comfortable” with DTF members staging the operation without the support of a tactical team, according to commissioners who reviewed the incident.

On April 9, DTF members obtained a search warrant for the home at 517 Post Road, as well as a warrant to arrest Tibbetts. They decided to serve the warrant on April 12, at about 6 p.m.

About 30 minutes before the appointed hour, a team of DTF officers met with uniformed officers from Greenland to prepare for the drug raid.

Team Leader Scott Kukesh, a Newmarket detective, was also part of the operation, but he arrived late to the briefing. Kukesh was detained by a previous assignment; he was working on the protective detail for Vice President Joe Biden, who visited the Seacoast earlier in the day.

One of the DTF officers headed to Mutrie's home early to look for vehicle traffic. There was none, and the remainder of the DTF team arrived in a van, communicating by mobile phone.

They parked on the side of the road, out of view. Maloney arrived in his own marked police cruiser, and also parked on the side of the road.

Police had obtained a so-called “no-knock” search warrant, giving them the legal authorization to enter Mutrie's home without knocking on the front door. However, DTF members instead decided to have two uniformed Greenland police officers try to draw Mutrie out of the house.

The officers, Wayne Young and David LoConte, arrived in a marked vehicle, and drove into the driveway. They walked onto the porch and knocked several times on the door, but received no response.

The DTF team decided to enter the home with force and serve the search warrant. They pulled the van into the driveway, near the marked Greenland police cruiser, and told the uniformed officers to retreat and cover the rear of the property.

Five of the DTF members exited the van, and another DTF member arrived in a sedan. They met up and approached the porch, forming a “stack” — a tactical formation to prepare to enter with a battering ram.

Murphy was the “breacher.” He tried several times to bust open the door, but was unsuccessful. A decision was made to break the window to the right of the front door, but given the darkness and the presence of a shade, officers couldn't see inside.

The team went back to the door, and after a few more attempts, the door frame gave way. Mutrie was directly on the other side, standing beside an air hockey table. He began firing immediately.

Newton Detective Christopher Thurlow, who recently returned to the Drug Task Force after a tour of duty in Afghanistan, was in the middle of the stack when the shooting began.
Four of the six DTF officers went down. Thurlow moved out of the way and began firing back, moving right and angling his gunshots through the narrow doorway. It was Thurlow's return fire that “likely could have driven Mutrie away from the center of the door,” giving the injured officers time to escape, Delaney said.

Maloney arrived and parked to the right of the DTF van. Thurlow ran to detective Kukesh, who was seriously wounded. Maloney approached Kukesh from the front, and the two escorted Kukesh away from the door.

The remaining wounded officers took cover, and Mutrie fled into the basement. It was from a basement window that he allegedly shot Maloney in the head with a semiautomatic pistol within the next 10 minutes.

Greenland Police Officer Theodore Hartmann was in close proximity to the home when shots rang out shortly before 6:22 p.m. He performed the first officer evacuation, taking Kukesh and Turner to Portsmouth Regional Hospital.

Stratham Police Officer Charles Law responded to the scene soon after and evacuated the other two wounded DTF members — Murphy and Kulberg.

After Maloney was shot, the officers on scene became pinned downed in the front yard, taking cover behind vehicles. Maloney was finally evacuated from the scene at about 7:06 p.m. in an armored vehicle provided by SERT. He was taken to Portsmouth Regional Hospital by a Rye ambulance team.

Police officers swarmed to the area as Mutrie and Tibbetts, still inside the basement, made their final communications with friends and family members.

Mutrie's criminal defense attorney, Stephen Jeffco, called police shortly before 7 p.m. to report he had been contacted by Mutrie. Jeffco said he would try to arrange for Mutrie to surrender, but efforts to convince Mutrie to exit the home were unsuccessful.

Mutrie also contacted Shane Bateman, a friend and Hampton Falls firefighter. Bateman told police Mutrie admitted that he “may have shot” two police officers. It remains unclear whether Mutrie was talking about shooting officers during the initial engagement at his front door, or during the killing of Maloney.

Tibbetts' final communication was a text message sent shortly after 8 p.m., intended to reach her mother. Sometime thereafter, investigators say Mutrie shot Tibbetts, then turned the gun on himself.

Police later discovered their bodies after sending a State Police robot equipped with a camera into the residence. Mutrie was found with a gunshot wound to the head. He also sustained a wound on his right forearm, believed to be a minor injury from a bullet. A 9 mm handgun was found in his lap.

Two guns were recovered at the scene — the 9 mm semiautomatic pistol and a .357 revolver. Investigators say Mutrie fired the .357 during the opening volley on the porch. As evidence, investigators say a bullet that struck Murphy was recovered, tested, and found to be a match for the gun.

According to the attorney general's office, Tibbetts purchased the .357, a five-shot revolver, at a Manchester gun show. Records show she also purchased a second gun, a .380, which has yet to be accounted for, according to the attorney general's office.

All of the fatal rounds fired during the April 12 shootout came from the second weapon, the 9 mm handgun. Investigators say the gun was purchased by Mutrie's father at the Kittery Trading Post in 1989.

Cullen Mutrie is believed to have fired two rounds from the 9 mm through the basement window, including the one that struck Maloney. Another round from the 9mm fatally wounded Tibbetts. The final bullet killed Mutrie.

A search at the home turned up various quantities of controlled drugs, including 27 grams of cocaine, three vials of anabolic steroids, 5 grams of marijuana and 7 grams of mushrooms, according to a presentation prepared by the attorney general's office. There were no drugs found in any of the vehicles on the property.

Toxicology testing indicates that Mutrie had evidence of narcotics, opiates, marijuana and anabolic steroids in his body at the time of his death. Tibbetts showed evidence of having used narcotics, opiates and marijuana, according to investigators.

Although there was a camera found on Mutrie's porch, police have found no evidence that it was recording anything. They searched computers found inside Mutrie's home for recordings of the April 12 drug raid, but found none. They have been unable to find evidence of any surveillance software on the computers.